As soon as she closed the door, Meg felt awful.

And it wasn't an 'I should've conducted myself better' kind of awful, it was a 'bad fish at the community buffet' kind of awful. Her stomach clenched, her muscles ached, and she felt like someone had buried her under a miserably hot, wet blanket. She shivered--actually shivered--as she took a few steps away from the exam room, but that wasn't going to stop her.

She'd never walked out on an assignment before, no matter how much she hated it. She couldn't afford to gain a reputation as being hard to work with in a city where there were more people than jobs. She and Ash would starve if she did that.

But she couldn't stay in that room; couldn't be around that... man another minute longer.

Not because she felt she couldn't work with Karuvar, as she'd originally feared. The Pathfinder, Drol'gan, was nice enough, and aside from that crazy scuffle, they hadn't been as war-y as she'd assumed. No, she could have worked with them, in the general sense. She just couldn't work with Verkiir, because...

Well, because she wanted to conveniently lose all of her clothes when she was around him.

Even thinking about him now made her hot and bothered, and that was with the knowledge of what he'd said. He spoke like she was his property; like him "claiming" her was inevitable because their stupid tattoos just happened to match.

The worst part of it, though, was that her body wanted that. Desperately. And this wasn't a normal kind of attraction. She'd been attracted to men before, but never like this. Never to the point where she was still soaking wet and ready for him even after he said something that garnered a big, fat "nope."

It was probably some kind of Karuvar mind control thing, she thought, as she trudged through the Waystation and down to the first tier, looking for Ash all the while. Verkiir had done something to her brain, and she hadn't been in control of her senses. That was all it was. Now that she'd freed herself from it, she would get as far away from him as she could and it would go away.

"Ash!" she called, seeing her sister by one of the windows, pointing to something while the younger alien--Drann--watched. "We're leaving."

"I'll catch up," Ashley said, waving her off.

Uh, no. That wasn't how this was going to work. She marched straight over to Ash, her hands on her hips. Megan hated going all mom-mode on her sister, but this situation definitely warranted that.

"We--emphasis on the we--are leaving."

Ash folded her arms over her chest and glared at her. It might have worked, if Meg herself wasn't well-versed in the ways of the Cauthran staredown. She glared right back, and eventually Ash rolled her eyes and let up.

"Fine." She sighed, then turned to Drann. "Sorry, I gotta go. It was nice meeting you."

The Karuvar's ears drooped. "Oh. I will see you again, Azh’lee?"

Meg poked a finger right into Drann's chest. Somewhere in an exam room, Verkiir was probably seething, and that made her happy. And sad.

"I don't think so, buddy. You keep your mind meld shit away from my sister."

"Megan!" Ash screeched, grabbing her arm and pulling her away. "She gets a little psychotic when she skips breakfast. I'll see you around, Drann."

The Karuvar repeated the gesture he'd made at the start, and Ash waved in response with one hand, while using the other to pull Meg away. Insufferable little brat.

"Rude much?" she hissed.

"I saw him making eyes at you," Meg said, wincing at how stupid it sounded when voiced aloud. "You do not need to go through... whatever this is."

Ash smirked. "What? Drooling over a guy like he's a piece of steak?"

"Yeah, that."

Meg took charge, linking arms with her sister as they headed toward the outtake hub. She should really stop by the admin's office and put in for a transfer directly, but she wasn't sure she could stand in front of the Medical Director of Waystation Helios and explain why she needed to be anywhere else… without her cheeks burning.

"I think it's kinda nice, in a weird, macho way," Ash mused.

"There's nothing nice about whatever's going on here," she muttered.

And there wasn't. She didn't want to be some alien's baby mama. She had enough drama in her life just taking care of a teenager. It didn't matter that the intensity she'd seen in his eyes--like he never wanted to look at anything else but her again--made her stomach fill with butterflies. It didn't matter that she was still worried about what his people might do to him. He basically wanted a glorified sex slave turned housewife, and as fun as that first part might be to roleplay, Meg was not about that life.

With any luck, she might just be able to ignore that deep, persistent ache that told her she should be.

* * *

The bus was running off-schedule, so they didn't get back home until after noon. On Ash's insistence, Meg stopped at a street vendor to get them both some food, though the way her stomach roiled suggested consuming it was a bad idea. She took one bite of a kebab--something she normally loved--and it tasted like ash in her mouth. The water she washed it down with wasn't much better.

Thankfully, her sister was all too happy to take her leftovers, and she happily munched away as they walked home. Meg had learned long ago that keeping Ash well-fed was the only way to actually manage her. It was like the way bees reacted to smoke. Instead of a snippy, sarcastic, stinging little monster, she just docilely buzzed about.

When they got home, Meg locked the front door--as if that would protect them from ridiculously huge alien men barging into the house--and went about finding the paperwork she'd need to fill out for the transfer.

"I can work if you need me to," Ash said, taking another bite off the skewer.

They'd had this conversation before, when things were really dire and they'd been in danger of losing the house. Once upon a time, there'd been labor laws in the US. Those didn't exist now, so Ash was free to work as she pleased.

But their parents wouldn't want that, and so whenever times got tough, Meg just put her head down and worked harder.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "You need to finish school. I'll figure it out."

Ash gave her a look, but they both knew she wasn't going to win that argument.

"What are you gonna do now?"

What was she going to do now? Even looking at the form, staring at the field marked 'reason for requesting transfer,' Meg didn't have a clue.

"Anything but that," she said.

"I liked them," Ash said with a shrug, plopping down into the old recliner their dad loved, her legs draped over the arm of it. "Drann was cool. He's really interested in Earth stuff."

Oh, Meg could guess what kind of "Earth stuff" he was interested in, if Verkiir was any indication. But since Ash hadn't lost her damn mind, it seemed unlikely that he'd done anything. Yet.

"You don't understand. As soon as they walked in, it felt like I wasn't in control of myself. My mind, my... body."

She winced, and Ash made a face. "More than I needed to know."

And more than she wanted to tell her sister. Thankfully, Ash busied herself with a book while Meg filled out the form. Or tried to fill it out. It was hard to focus on writing when her skin was crawling, pins and needles vibrating through her flesh. Every fiber of her being ached, even the hair on her head. She was utterly exhausted, and it wasn't long before she had to drag herself to bed in the middle of the day.

She wasn't sure what was wrong with her. No one had gotten radiation sickness since the Karuvar first introduced humans to the implants, but that didn't mean the implants themselves were safe. A week of watching her parents suffer was enough to convince Meg of that.

And her arm did hurt. It felt like there was fire pulsing through her veins, and her tattoo looked oddly inflamed. Maybe being around the Karuvar had caused it, or maybe it had just exacerbated it. Either way, Meg felt real fear slice through her. So much of it that she was somehow able to fight her body's exhaustion... for a little while.

Eventually she succumbed, and when she did, she dreamed. But these weren't fever dreams--at least not the traditional kind. These were the kinds of dreams that had her clenching her thighs together in her sleep, just to get a little relief. The kind of dreams that awoke her, wet and wanting.

These were dreams of Verkiir.

The vision in her mind's eye was incredibly clear. She saw him, beautiful and golden, staring down at her with that look in his eyes. When she reached out to touch him, she could feel the primal heat of his body, contrasting with the coolness of his scales. And when he touched her, she was consumed by a full-body shudder, his big, calloused hands sliding over her nude body.

He pulled her against him, his muscles firm and solid, his thick cock fully hard already, the smooth, hot flesh pressing against her belly.

In her dream, she didn't feel pain. It didn't feel like every nerve ending was on fire. She wasn't gripped with stomach-churning nausea. All she felt was peace and pleasure. And a deep, aching need for him to join with her.

She knew he felt it, too. He lifted her easily, holding her in his arms. She could feel the head of his cock pressing against the lips of her pussy, and that sense of anticipation was almost too torturous to bear.

In her dream, she wrapped her hands around the base of his horns, and his eyes flashed with more desire than she'd ever seen in her life. All of it fixed on her. She craved it, reveled in it, and when he thrust into her in one strong, hard motion, she felt more complete than she'd ever felt in her life.

But then she woke up.

Alone.

Shivering despite the fact that it wasn't cold and she had a blanket cocooned around her. She ached--and not just in a flu-ish sort of way--but she'd be damned if she was going to do anything about it.

Whatever this was, it would pass. She had to believe that, because the alternative...

The alternative was unacceptable.